Colorado Mountain Boondocking Photos
Howdy all! This week I've been located in the beautiful Sawatch mountains west of Salida, CO. The area is spectacular and I had to share a couple photos! I have to admit, I am attempting to learn...
Forum Discussion
4runnerguy wrote:
Rode the lower part of the Rainbow Trail on Thursday. Parked on US 285 and rode up the Silver Creek Lakes road about eight miles and caught the bottom 9.5 miles of the Rainbow Trail. Have ridden the Monarch Crest several times and it is breathtaking (in more ways than one), but the bottom part of the Rainbow Trail gives one an ear to ear grin. In some ways I enjoy it more as a ride by itself as I'm often pretty tired by the time I get there after riding the Crest.
I'm assuming you've hit the S Mountain and Methodist Mountain Trails by now (maybe we passed each other in the last couple of days?). Of course there's the Midland Trail above Buena Vista. They've rerouted some of that trail in the last year taking out some of the places that had gotten severely eroded in the past.
This afternoon we rode the dirt road above Cottonwood Lake just to enjoy the aspen. Nothing technical, but way beautiful. Steep enough and high enough in altitude to get the heart rate up. About nine or ten miles from Cottonwood Lake to the end of the road. (9600' to 11,900')
Another easy but beautiful (mostly) dirt road ride is south out of St. Elmo up to Hancock along an old railroad grade. Great aspen along this route unless the wind has blown them all off. Eventually you get to the trailhead for the Alpine Tunnel. Easy singletrack but very interesting. I understand there is a singletrack that continues beyond the Alpine Tunnel and loops back to Tincup Pass, but haven't done that yet.
Great info!! Thanks Ken! I rode CT-14 yesterday but haven't ridden any others. Work and the cold days (Fri-Sat) really put the damper on things. I'm still recovering from 3 arm surgeries this year so I have to be gentle - plus I'm terribly out of shape because of that. If you had to pick a couple trails that are not terribly difficult, are beautiful single-track, and don't require a shuttle - what would they be??
I was thinking Rainbow would be one (starting ending at Columbine Trail/Parking. Possibly 'Monarch to Fooses Creek' (requires shuttle).
